Cancer Frustration

I won't get overly emotional with you on this issue but, cancer's ugly head has frustrated the heck out of me for most of my adult life.

I'm sure that I'm not alone in this and that there is an ever-growing group of our members who are being introduced and re-introduced to cancer's plague on our families, friends, and societies.

For me personally, the frustration is compounded by the fact of having lost so many wonderful people to various forms of this disease over the past 43 years.

This 43 year period is compounded by the fact that one day after work, a neighbor who was a medical research scientist shared his own exasperation with me. I'll never, ever, ever forget that conversation! The intensity of his conviction came from his deep belief that there was a cure for cancer - at that time. That conversation took place on the balcony of my apartment at Falls Church Country Club Apartments in Falls Church, Virginia during the summer of1975.

That conversation frequently comes to mind when close friends and relatives share news of their own brush with cancer. I can always remember that doctor's rich baritone voice taking on a rare instance of stridency in voicing his frustration that the cure was known. He was a stocky, robust looking man of Middle-Eastern ancestry. Until that conversation, he and I had just had fairly nondescript conversations - neighborly chit-chat. But, this conversation was such a radical departure from our more routine conversations that it still stands out as a seminal conversation in my life three decades later.

As usual, in making my annual call to my brother's widow, I could barely recognize her voice - a voice she had to use to tell me that she's going through her second round of chemotherapy.

From her deeper than normal voice, I could tell that she'd obviously resigned herself to merely going through the motions of following her doctors' orders.

Without going any further into her personal story, I'd just like to see if there is anything, anything at all that an informal community such as ours can do to push back a little on a disease that's likely to affect 100% of us during the course of our lives.

Do you know of good resources that we can partner with?

Do you know of entities that are making progress in contending with cancer?

Do you have stories of examples remission that we can help share with those in our families and networks who are dealing with cancer?

Do you know of sources that demonstrate that prayer and/or meditation have been helpful in dealing with cancer on an individual basis?

Do you know of rays of hope that we can get genuinely excited about over the next 5-25 years? (This is meant mainly rhetorically yet, if you do know, please share.)